


hashtag proxemics

by saltysfeathers (saltyfeathers)



Series: hashtag relatable [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crack, M/M, honestly lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 07:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3842746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltyfeathers/pseuds/saltysfeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the one where they don't (?) get cursed. </p><p>at the very least, sam's delicate sensibilities remain delicate</p>
            </blockquote>





	hashtag proxemics

they fight a witch, but even three on one proves insufficient. she sends dean flying into cas, and then the both of them go flying into her workbench, knocking absolutely everything over and getting doused in a cauldron full (yes, an actual metal cauldron that so very kindly cracks dean on the head as it falls) of some kind of clear potion. as dean and cas attempt to scramble to their feet, the witch focuses on sam, pointing a finger at him and actually laughing out loud as she somehow curses (?) sam’s hair to snap over his eyes like a goddam sleep mask, leaving him completely vulnerable. instead of going for the killing blow, she simply snaps her fingers and vanishes in a fairly dramatic puff of smoke, leaving our intrepid trio with their egos bruised more than anything else, although dean does think he’s going to have a pretty fantastic lump on his head thanks to that cauldron.

sam remains on the other side of the room clutching at his face as he attempts to defend himself from his own hair (and in fact, dean’s pretty sure he’s made this exact joke before sans witchy magic, so maybe sam’ll take the goddam hint this time) while dean and cas brush themselves and each other off, grumbling in tandem at the potion covering the both of them. Dean brings his sleeve to his nose and takes a whiff of the potion, and he gets a faint metallic note. he makes a face.

dean and cas and sam are nothing if not used to making complete fools of themselves on hunts though, (well, cas is still getting used to it and he’s kind of a sore loser) so they pick themselves up with as much dignity as they can and drive their sorry asses back to their motel. sam raises his eyebrows when dean tosses him the keys, but dean just glares him into silence as he crawls into the back seat with cas, patting cas gingerly on the head and trying to coax at least a laugh out of him because goddam cas _really_ is a sore loser. Dean makes a mental note to be wary when they finally find a free afternoon to play monopoly and cas lands on boardwalk with a hotel and has to mortgage his entire life to pay whoever owns it. that person will probably have to sleep with one eye open for a while.

Cas is still lowkey fuming when they get to the motel, so dean manhandles him into the room they share with sam (this particular batch of stolen credit cards are on their way out, leaving three grown ass men in the same room while two of said men attempt to keep it family friendly and as far away from each other’s asses as possible while the third just feels super awkward all the time) and dumps him onto their bed, immediately joining him. when sam walks in he looks at the two of them, snorts, and declares he’s taking a shower. a stray strand of hair falls in front of his face and he nearly jumps out of his skin, leaving dean sputtering laughter on the bed.

“hey sam!” he calls after sam’s already in the bathroom, “I think they might have a complimentary hairnet if you’re interested”

“what you mean to strangle you with?” sam calls back, and dean snorts.

“mine was better,” he says, smirking.

 cas huffs beside him, and dean rolls his eyes.

“are you still that annoyed” he asks. “shit man, we get duped all the time by bad guys. it’s actually kind of amazing how often it happens even though we’ve been working these gigs basically our entire lives.”

“yeah, well, you may be confined by the narrative to make silly decisions when fighting monsters, but I like to think I’ve largely avoided that pitfall,” he says grouchily.

“huh,” dean says, scooting forward on the bed a bit so he can lie back against cas’ chest. he points up at the ceiling. “I wonder why they have ‘gullible’ written on the ceiling.”

even though dean can’t see cas’ face, he can feel the frown against his hair.

“what?” cas says, and obviously looks up and sees nothing because the next thing he says is “oh. you’re joking.”

Dean pats him on the knee.

“it’s ok pal,” he says. “we’ve all been there.”

cas bristles silently behind him and dean rolls his eyes. “look, the shower’s still running so we have maybe seven minutes before sam walks out that door. you want a quickie? It’ll make you feel better.”

“no” cas says stubbornly, and then exactly ten seconds later he sighs and says “yes, dean, I’d like a ‘quickie’”.

dean was almost right. it takes about five minutes to get cas off (sometimes you just gotta go with efficiency over finesse, y’know?) and the shower stops literally five seconds after cas’ orgasm does, so dean is zipping him back up just as sam opens the bathroom door, rubbing a towel through his hair and none the wiser. Having spent their fair share of time this past week stuck in cramped motel rooms with sam has turned them into quite the speedy jerk off duo.  dean’s convinced they should open up a drive thru for orgasms.

“water was already getting cold when I got out,” sam says, “just in case you two need to fight over who gets to go next.”

cas casts a surreptitious glance down at where dean’s casually covering his boner since he didn’t get a chance to return the favor for the ‘stop being so fucking sulky’ handjob. he raises an eyebrow at dean, who nods slightly in return.

“yeahhhhhhhhhh,” dean says slowly, edging off the bed and sagging his posture on purpose as he slumps to the bathroom,  cas only a step behind, “we’re just gonna go……………… together……….” He slides into the bathroom, yanking cas in by his shirtfront, and he’s pretty sure sam yells something about his own delicate sensibilities (or that could just be dean projecting).

“nothing untoward, sam, I swear!’ dean yells as cas drops to his knees right there in the bathroom, already working dean’s fly open. Dean swats him on the back of the head. “ _hey_ ,” he hisses, “at least in the shower, alright?”

“if I spend time blowing you in the shower  that means more time stuck under the cold water,” cas points out logically.

“ugh true.” dean debates for a moment before turning the shower on and swivelling the dial all the way to cold. once they actually get in he’ll at least try and warm it up if the goliath out there didn’t use all the hot water. “let’s go.”

“I am eager to put your penis in my mouth,” cas says dryly, and dean actually snorts.

“im happy to do it myself if it’s such a chore,” dean says. “you can just sit there and watch.”

“not a chance.”

so they do the do and then they shower in the shower (which was fucking freezing, sam, thanks), and pull enough clothes on to be presentable before leaving the bathroom.  sam is lying on his bed on his stomach,  forcefully holding a pillow over his head.

“oops” dean says as he walks forward to yank it off. “WE’RE DONE, SAM,” he yells, hitting his brother with the pillow for good measure. when he turns around, cas is right there, the ghost of a smirk on his face, and dean kind of gets why sam hates rooming with them. oh well, sucks to be him.

“you’re going to get dinner” sam groans.

“you could’ve done that while we were otherwise occupied,” dean retorts, but sam just glares at him.

“my hair is still twitching, dean! if it started strangling me in line at mcdonald’s what the hell was I supposed to do?”

dean makes scissors out of his index and middle finger, chopping them towards sam.

“that’s what,” he says, picking up his keys off the desk. “coming, cas?”

they go get burgers to bring back to their room, and when they come back, dean eats his on the end of their bed while cas sits on the floor and leans back against dean’s shins. After, they crack open beers and watch shitty tv while cas falls asleep on dean’s chest and dean makes googly eyes at the top of cas’ head that sam laughs and throws cold french fries at.

for the next three days while they try and locate the witch, things stay pretty much the same. dean and cas bicker and banter and start furtively glancing at sam (they think they’re being subtle, honestly) when they want him to “talk a walk so I can-” “ITS OK CAS I GET IT” “-so I can-” “THANKS CAS” “do things to your brother-” “GOODBYE” and sam will practically sprint out of the room while dean shoves at cas’ shoulder with his socked feet as he shakes with laughter. cas has actually gotten frighteningly good at chasing sam out of a room. it’s amazing to watch.

on the fourth day, they find the witch holing up in- get this- a shitty room at the shitty motel just down the road from theirs. maybe they’re from the same side of the tracks after all, minus the part where she casts hilarious curses that make people’s hair try to murder them (admittedly, dean might have laughed longer than he should have after they diffused the Situation during the second night of said curse where Sam’s hair managed to grab his gun from under the pillow and hold him hostage for almost an hour before cas got the brilliant idea to zip it with some hairspray that stiffened it right up).

Aside from that, though, the witch has been only a minor annoyance. she hasn’t killed anyone (that they know of) and she taught sam an important life lesson about hair maintenance. as far as witches go, she’s alright (which is a lot coming from dean) so really all they want to do is convince her to leave town  and lift this damn curse off sam, since dean swears he saw sam trying to reason with his own hair in the mirror the other day. it’s hilarious, but it’s time is nigh.

they do the whole cool ‘burst the door down with guns drawn’ thing which isn’t nearly as cool when the witch merely stares balefully at them from where she’s doing her makeup at the desk.

“I’m not paying for that,” she says lightly, nodding towards the door.

“yeah well you’re gonna…. pay…” is dean’s brilliant comeback. he can feel sam and cas glaring daggers at him, but to his ultimate surprise, the witch laughs.

“oh, you winchesters,” she says, waving a mascara wand around. It ends up pointing at cas. “I don’t know who you are, though,” her eyes narrow. “illegitimate third brother?”

dean and sam share a Look, while cas says, “not quite. we just want you to leave town and remove the curse you put on him.” he inclines his head towards sam.

the witch cocks her head, looking between cas and dean. “what about you two?” she asks, gesturing again with the mascara wand.

cas frowns as dean says, “what _about_ us?”

“but you-” the witch points her wand at cas. “and you-” back at dean. “got covered in my newest brew, didn’t you?”

“uh, I guess,” dean says. this is weird. most of their confrontations with baddies don’t devolve into casual convos, except maybe with crowley but FUCK crowley. he’s an asshole.

“don’t you……… want me to cure you two as well?” she asks, sounding like she thinks she may be on the verge of getting punk’d, supernatural-style.

dean and cas look at each other.

“uh cure us of what?” dean asks. “we just thought you sucked at potion making and that one was a dud.”

“i’ll have you know i’m awesome at what I do,” she says, affronted. “fuck you very much.”

dean puts up his hands. “ok, sorry. but I really think that batch didn’t work because there wasn’t any funny business or witchy-woo going on.”

the witch looks between him and cas again, this time _really_ looking at them.

“ah, shit,” she says. “I misread the tension between you two. I thought you didn’t like each other.” she purses her lips. “I got it wrong, didn’t i.”

“ok lady we didn’t come here to talk about _tension_ or whatever, we-”

“I threw you into that table on purpose, numbnuts,” the witch interrupts him. she looks up at the ceiling, sighing heavily, disappointed. “it would’ve been way more fun if you hated each other, but jesus, I guess you two didn’t even _notice_.”

“notice WHAT?” dean snaps, really wanting to point his gun at something other than the floor.

the witch rolls her eyes again and waves a finger at sam.

“the hippy’s cured,” she says. she looks at sam. “get a haircut.” oh, man, under other circumstances dean would definitely want to befriend this lady.

“as for you two,” she returns her gaze to dean and cas, “that potion I knocked you into wasn’t nothing.” she shakes her head in disbelief. “you went four days without noticing, that _has_ to be a record.”

dean taps his gun against his thigh. “I swear to god if you don’t get to the point in like three seconds-”

“here’s the big punchline: it was a proximity spell,” the witch finally admits. “jesus christ, the idea is that you can’t be more than a couple feet from each other at any time. you survived less than a couple feet away from each other for four days, who the hell does that?”

dean looks over at cas, who is indeed, barely two feet from him. over on the other side of the room, there’s what sounds like a mini explosion, and then sam is literally doubled over laughing. everyone waits for him for at least three minutes to chill the fuck out, and when he finally straightens back up, wiping tears from his eyes, he looks over at them and says, “you guys _do_ have a weird thing about personal space,” and hiccups. 

dean feels his traitor face flame, and when he looks over at cas, cas just shrugs.

“did you- did you even go to the bathroom?” the witch asks, scandalized, which draws another round of snorts from sam.

“ _yes_ ,” dean snaps, then, rubbing the back of his neck, “it’s a small motel room.”

sam makes a sound that sounds a hell of a lot like doubt, and dean glares at him, the promise of a nair shampoo evident in his eyes. sam better hold onto his locks.

“well,” the witch stands up. “frankly, im embarrassed for everyone present, myself included. my people reading skills are in desperate need of fine tuning, I think. So im just gonna…” she waves, “see myself out.” she disappears again in the puff of smoke, and dean actually finds himself thinking it’s a pretty nifty party trick. all of her things are gone as well, and they’re alone in the room. sam is still chuckling, the asshole.

dean scowls at cas.

“you started this” he accuses, pointing. “you and that freaky personal bubble popping habit of yours.”

“maybe,” cas allows serenely, “but if I recall, you were the one who never _unpopped_ the bubble, so to speak.”

“yeah,” dean says forcefully, then, “no,” then, “maybe. hey. fuck you.”

“since you offered the other day, you’re always free to jerk yourself off for the foreseeable future, dean,” cas says, mirth hiding in his eyes. “if you’d like to reinstate the personal space rule.”

sam’s laughter stops abruptly. “oh cmon guys,” he says balefully.

“I don’t have to be anywhere in the vicinity,” cas promises. “ill take the time to go commune with nature.”

“ok ok ok let’s not get hasty,” dean says quickly.

“you’re free to run errands on your own,” cas says, “though I doubt the clerk at the grocery store will indulge you near as much as I do when you make terrible jokes about the bananas we always buy.”

“aw gross, dean, I eat those bananas,” sam whines.

“OK!” dean says. “ok, I concede. Im white flagging it.”

he makes a move to walk towards the door, and cas steps almost exactly in time with him, and dean freezes.

“did she uh. did she remove the spell?” dean asks warily. he holds a hand out to stop cas from moving, walking towards the door. “no offense, but once we get back to the bunker I’d really like to pee without you hovering outside the door.”

“duly noted,” cas says, as dean walks all the way out to the parking lot without any ill effects, and his shoulders slump in relief.

“I’m free to pee!” he shouts to the world, and the world deigns not to reply except for that maid up on the second floor walkway who gives him a strange look.

once they’ve also determined that sam’s hair has also returned to its natural state of just plain awfulness, they drive back to their own motel, and then hit the road. dean uses his big brother status to banish sam to the back seat (“if you guys try anything funny up there I _will_ call jody and get you arrested for indecent exposure”) and beckons cas up to shotgun.

“for what it’s worth,” he tells cas as they drive back to kansas, “if there is someone I’d want to be cursed to spend the rest of my life stuck to, it’d be you.”

 cas nods slowly.

“I’m sure we can figure out a way to contact the witch again,” he says wryly, and luckily dean does spend enough time with cas to know he’s just fucking with him, “she’d probably be happy to do it.”

“yeah I bet,” dean huffs laughter.

the side of cas’ mouth quirks up.

“I feel the same way,” he says, “if I had to be stuck with someone, I’d be glad it was you.”

“yea ok shakespeare,” dean says, even though he literally just said the same thing like a minute ago.

he intertwines his and cas’ fingers for the rest of the drive home.


End file.
